Sunday, November 24, 2013

I recently read that kale has anti-inflammatory properties.
According to Carolyn Butler, writing in the Washington
Post of September 25, 2012, kale—a leafy relative of broccoli, cabbage, and
cauliflower—contains 45 different flavonoids that possess antioxidant and
anti-inflammatory properties.

Quoting Deirdre Orceyre, a naturopathic physician at the
Center for Integrative Medicine at George Washington University Medical Center,
in that same article: kale has “a range of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory
effects in the body.”

I immediately thought this would make for a great marketing
opportunity for kale producers. Based on Newman’s “When you control the mail, you control... information!” rant in Episode 70 of Seinfeld, “The Lip Reader,” I urge the
Kale Marketing Board, or whatever the hell exists that promotes the stuff, to
hire Wayne Knight to reprise the scene in which he threatens Jerry with postal retribution for not
letting him “borrow” his new lip-reading girlfriend. Nothing could better trumpet kale’s benefit to the human body than Newman reassuring the American public that “When you control the kale, you control…inflammation!” as he displays his
not-so-inflamed hands.

Then again, as he did with kale’s unsavory cousin, broccoli,
Newman would very likely take a bite and spit it out in disgust, exclaiming
“Vile weed!” So maybe those kale folks should consider Frank Costanza as corporate spokesman—he probably doesn't find kale as distracting as tinsel...

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

I've long heard of this film, but I never knew what it was about (I think I always mistook it for 1966's run-for-your-life nail-biter, The Naked Prey). The description of The Naked Jungle on the Comcast grid:

Here's the problem with Chuck: he's so obsessed with guns that, whatever the threatening situation, he deals with it using firearms, regardless of how ill-suited they may be. I wonder how that shotgun worked out for him against thousands of marauding ants? I assume the film ends with Chuck blowing his legs off as he tries to shoot the numerous ants crawling up him...eventually lying in his own gore, angrily lamenting his foolish faith in guns between wails of insufferable agony...

What the hell did those NRA nuts see in this dope anyway?

Furthermore, The Naked Jungle was released in 1954—how did they know Heston was gonna win the Oscar for Ben-Hur five years later? Hell, how did they know Ben-Hur was even gonna be made???

(For more on Charlton Heston and his gun fixation, see the Mount Drinkmore post, "Heston Peace, Charlton," of April 11, 2008, located in the archive at left, or use keywords Charlton Heston, entertainment, film, or In Memoriam.)

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Last night, I was treated to dinner
at Butcher and Singer, the swanky Steven Starr steakhouse at 15th and Walnut. As
you can see under the salad selections, this establishment offers “The Wedge”—a
large slice of iceberg lettuce drenched in a bacon-and-Bleu-cheese Russian
dressing.

Now, maybe my proclivity for
free-associative thinking was abetted by dining in a Steven Starr restaurant, but, upon first sight
of it, I immediately conjured the idea of Wedge, the Rebel Alliance pilot who
flew alongside Luke Skywalker in Star
Wars and played a key role in all three films of the first trilogy,
emerging from the kitchen in full pilot uniform and serving me The Wedge while
regaling me with priceless anecdotes from the set and personal war stories from
the Star Wars universe.

After all, the actor who portrayed
Wedge, Denis Lawson, also played the ubiquitous Gordon Urquhart, the hotelier, chartered accountant, and community negotiator who also waited tables in his MacAskill Arms dining
room, in one of my very favorite films, Local
Hero. Expert in both roles, it would be no stretch to have the aproned
innkeeper who served meals to his guests do so for me while dressed instead as
the orange-jumpsuited fighter ace who helped send both Death Stars to their
doom.

And as Wedge placed The Wedge in
front of me, I think it would go a little something…like this:

“Look at the size of that thing!” I
marvel at the large, ludicrously priced wedge of lettuce. Appreciating my
homage to his most famous line of dialogue, Wedge then pours me a 42-year-old
scotch like the one Urquhart serves up in Local
Hero.

“Slàinte,” he toasts me.

“Good
shooting, Wedge,” I commend his expert pouring ability before taking a swig.

“I
can’t stay with you,” Wedge confesses, needing to return to the kitchen.

“Get
back there, Wedge. You can’t do anymore good out here,” I urge gratefully.

“Sorry,”
Wedge laments in his Corellia-by-way-of-Furness accent, peeling off toward the
kitchen. And as I dig into my ridiculously, just insanely overpriced chunk of iceberg
lettuce with a little dressing drizzled on it, I am wholly satisfied with the wait service from the best damn pilot the Alliance ever had.

Friday, November 1, 2013

Cheers was the sitcom of the 1980s. Combining
relatable and lovable characters with witty punch lines, the Boston bar–based
show reached the top ten in ratings for eight of its eleven seasons and remains
one of the most beloved comedies in the annals of television.

Perhaps just as remembered as the
characters themselves is Cheers’
opening credits, with its ultra-catchy “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” theme
song and colorized archival photos of barflies who strongly resembled their
onscreen counterparts.

Many viewers wondered about what the
newspaper headline WE WIN! bragged. (The elderly bartender proudly holding up
the paper is not intended to represent George Wendt’s character, Norm, whose counterpart is
shown seconds before this; Wendt’s name merely remains onscreen as this
implicit nod to the deceased Ernie “Coach” Pantusso concludes the opening
credits.)

Looking closer at the contents of this
newspaper, we can see that below the primary headline,
on the right, it reads “As Cards Lose to Bu...”

This indicates that this famous local
photo dates from the Boston Braves clinching the 1948 National League pennant. As
the second-place St. Louis Cardinals lost, 2-1, to the Pittsburgh Pirates (the
“Bu...cs”) on September 29, Boston simultaneously defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers,
4-3, concluding a torrid 18-6 September for the Braves and putting Boston up by
6 games. With only 5 games remaining for the Cardinals, the Braves had claimed their
first pennant since 1914.

What doesn’t ring true in the
context of the sitcom is that, by the time Cheers premiered in 1982, the Boston
Braves were but a dim memory in Bostonian minds, having abandoned Beantown for
Milwaukee after the 1952 season. Thus, the Braves hadn’t been part of Boston
culture for three decades. Add to that the fact that Boston was, even during
the Braves’ few glory years, undeniably a Red Sox town—with ex–Red Sox reliever
Sam Malone giving the bar added Sox cachet—and the use of this photo seems
deceptive.

Sure, Bostonians were rightfully
proud of their Braves heading to the World Series—but those folks were dead or
infirmed by the time Cheers was “open for business.”

Let’s be frank about that proud and
pugilistically inclined city: Had a patron come into Cheers and openly rooted
for the Atlanta Braves because he or she had remained a diehard Braves
supporter from their days in Boston, those Cheers regulars would have beaten
that fan with a ferocity that would have made The Depahhted look like
The Sound of Music.

Not to single out Bostonians, though—had
an Oakland A’s supporter showed his true colors in Paddy’s Pub, you can be sure
that Sweet Dee and the rest of the It’s
Always Sunny in Philadelphia crew would have gone Smokin’ Joe Frazier on
his traitorous ass.